Blog Tour: Stigma – Jørn Lier Horst & Thomas Enger, translated by Megan Turney

Alexander Blix is a broken man. Convicted for avenging his daughter’s death, he is now being held in one of Norway’s high­ security prisons. Inside, the other prisoners take every opportunity to challenge and humiliate the former police investigator.

On the outside, Blix’s former colleagues have begun the hunt for a terrifying killer. Walter Kroos has escaped from prison in Germany and is making his way north. The only lead established by the police is that Kroos has a friend in Blix’s prison ward. And now they need Blix’s help.

Journalist Emma Ramm is one of Blix’s few visitors, and she becomes his ally as he struggles to connect the link between past and present, between the world inside and outside the prison walls. And as he begins to piece things together, he identifies a woodland community in Norway where deeply scarred inhabitants foster deadly secrets … secrets that may be the unravelling of everyone involved.

Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger are both internationally bestselling Norwegian authors.

Jørn Lier Horst first rose to literary fame with his no. 1 bestselling William Wisting series. A former investigator in the Norwegian police, Horst imbues all his works with an unparalleled realism and suspense.

Thomas Enger is the journalist-turned-author behind the internationally acclaimed Henning Juul series. Enger’s trademark is his dark, gritty voice paired with key social messages and tight plotting. Besides writing fiction for both adults and young adults, Enger also works as a music composer.

Death Deserved, the first book in the bestselling Blix and Ramm series, was Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger’s first co-written thriller and was followed by Smoke Screen and Unhinged.

My thoughts: Blix is in prison for the killing of his daughter’s murderer, and as a former detective, he’s a target but keeping his head down seems to be working.

But now his old colleagues need his help, a double murderer is headed to Norway and looking for another inmate at the prison Blix is in. He’s tasked with trying to find out the link between the two men.

His eyes and ears outside are courtesy of Emma Ramm, one of the few people who has stood by him. She’s following a lead to Osen, home town of Blix’s fellow inmate. The answers lie somewhere in the past. And she’s determined to find them.

There’s a lot of leads that seem to go nowhere, with a woman gone missing, and locals with different stories. When the German killer was there as a young teenager, something terrible happened. Is it connected to his current visit? And what really happened?

Blix takes risks to solve the case and catch the killer or killers, putting his safety and freedom at risk. Emma is also put in danger, and she’s no longer sure the story is worth it. Could everything be about to change?

Gripping and carefully building up the tension as the details of the past slowly come to the surface, this is an intelligent and multilayered thriller.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.